Youth support for Zuma down – survey

Support for President Jacob Zuma has reached an all-time low among the youth, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The survey by Pondering Panda found that the number of young people approving of Zuma’s presidency fell from 37 percent in April last year to 29 percent this year.

A total of 3726 people aged between 18 and 34 were asked whether they thought Zuma was doing a good job as president.

“President Zuma’s support has fallen significantly across the board over the last year, with less than a third of young South Africans now feeling he’s doing a good job of running the country,” spokeswoman Shirley Wakefield said.

She said the Nkandla issue continued to plague Zuma’s presidency.

“While there have been several big scandals over the past year, the elephant in the room is Nkandla. It continues to plague his presidency, with other research we have conducted showing that two in three young people believe he should step down over it.”

According to the latest survey, young black South Africans were the most likely to approve of the president’s performance, with 32 percent giving him the thumbs-up. It was 41 percent in April last year.

“In contrast, only 19 percent of whites and 12 percent of coloureds thought he was doing a good job of running the country,” said Wakefield.

Over the past year, Zuma’s support fell across all nine provinces.

“Respondents from KwaZulu-Natal were the most positive, despite a significant drop in support for Zuma over the past year, from 57 percent in April last year to 49 percent now,” she said.

The Western Cape and Gauteng were the most negative, with only 18 percent and 21 percent of respondents respectively saying Zuma was doing a good job.

Zuma lost the most support in Mpumalanga, where it fell from 50 percent in April 2013 to 26 percent in April 2014.

The Eastern Cape saw a fall from 36 percent in April last year to 27 percent this month.